Lunney, the MP for Nanaimo-Alberni, says he’s leaving voluntarily so as not to entangle his Tory colleagues in controversy over his beliefs regarding evolution.

He says he’ll sit as an Independent but will continue to vote with the ruling Conservatives.

Lunney says his decision was sparked by reaction to remarks he made earlier this month, which he says were inflated by the media and became part of a firestorm of condemnation surrounding two Ontario politicians who do not believe in the theory of evolution.

He says the reaction showed ignorance and intolerance, cloaked in a defence of science.

In a statement, Lunney maintains there are deliberate attempts to suppress a Christian world view in the senior levels of politics.

]]>http://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/vancouver-island-mp-quits-tory-caucus-to-defend-his-views-on-evolution/feed/0NBC’s ‘A.D. The Bible Continues’ series probes post-crucifixion political dramahttp://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/nbcs-a-d-the-bible-continues-series-probes-post-crucifixion-political-drama/
http://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/nbcs-a-d-the-bible-continues-series-probes-post-crucifixion-political-drama/#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 10:28:20 -0700Paul Schemm, The Associated Press1571721Read the Rest of the Entry]]>OUARZAZATE, Morocco – The people are restive, the priesthood is scheming and a fanatic band of insurgents known as the zealots are plotting assassinations — and now to make matters worse, the body of a condemned cult-leader known as Jesus has disappeared from the tomb, apparently following some ancient prophecy.

Politics in Jerusalem 33 A.D. was just as complex and dangerous as it is today and NBC’s new series, “A.D. The Bible Continues” fuses the biblical epic with the current rage for taut political dramas — “House of Cards” in sandals.

The first of the 10 episodes airs at 9 p.m. EDT Easter, picking up where its predecessor, the wildly popular “The Bible” series from the History Channel left off and going on to tell the story of what happened to Christ’s disciples after the crucifixion.

It is choosing this time period that makes “A.D.” such a departure from past Bible stories, most of which end with the resurrection.

Here, it is just a beginning and a rough one as well, with an anguished Mother Mary (played by Greta Scacchi) watching her son die on the cross while the terrified apostles fear the rage of the crowd and try to distance themselves from their leader.

“The decade following the crucifixion, from the perspective of the Apostles, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” creator Mark Burnett, whose credits include “Survivor,” ”The Bible” and “Shark Tank,” told The Associated Press from his home in Malibu. “Every day, they thought they could be killed.”

He and his co-producer and wife, Roma Downey, actress and former star of CBS’ “Touched By an Angel,” touched a chord with the original Bible series that debuted in 2013 on the History channel to 13 million viewers, prompting NBC pick up their plans to craft a sequel for network television.

This new series, however, goes for a more gritty and human approach that tries to understand the characters as humans caught up in the politics of the day. Only about half of the material comes from the Bible, with the rest from historians of the period.

“If anyone comes to it expecting to see only the Bible, they will be interested to see that we have created a much larger and historic and political contest to set that story in,” said Downey, as she took a lunch break during the filming outside the grandiose set that represents Pontius Pilate’s Roman palace in Morocco.

“I think what it does it allows you to have a fuller understanding of that story because when you see the oppression of the times that they are living in, when you understand that danger lurks in every alley, and the inhumanity of the times,” she said.

The original series took advantage of existing sets in Ouarzazate, Morocco which has hosted Bible-themed films for decades, but this time around, show creators decided to build their own highly detailed sets in the middle of the rolling desert hills outside of the city.

Workmen created the streets and shops of ancient Jerusalem and Damascus as well as the sumptuous confines of Pilate’s palace — an investment into future seasons of the show. Downey points out that with the Bible as source material, the show could go on for quite some time.

The attempt for a more realistic approach to the period extends to the characters.

Pilate, played by the icy blue-eyed Vincent Regan (“300,” ”Troy,” ”Clash of the Titans”) is the Roman governor of an occupation that is only tenuously in control of a land. He has to juggle between competing factions and somehow keep the peace.

Forever tarnished with the stigma of washing his hands at Christ’s death, Pilate’s decision to allow the execution in the series makes a certain degree of sense.

“When Jesus was killed, there were over a million people in the city at the time (for Passover). As far as he was concerned, he was faced with a no-win situation: He either crucifies this one guy or all hell breaks loose and there would be rioting,” said Regan, resplendent in his costume of Roman armour.

Pilate not only has to contend with the city’s competing factions but his own wife Claudia (Joanne Whaley, Willow), whose sleep is troubled by visions of Christ and opposes her husband’s increasingly desperate efforts to crack down on the apostles.

In their tense exchanges, he finds himself having to angrily justify his actions to her — “the man was a danger to the status quo” — as he tries to govern restive outpost of the Roman Empire.

The series has several strong female roles in it, including Leah, the ambitious wife of High Priest Caiaphas (Richard Coyle), who pushes her husband to amass more power.

The role of Mary Magdalene is also central. While she doesn’t quite attain the status of head of the nascent church given her by Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code,” she is clearly one of the key members of the group as it tries to figure what comes next after the crucifixion.

“Our interpretation is that while many organizations are fronted by men, women were the ones that kept the cogs moving,” said Chipo Chung, the actress that plays Mary and has appeared previously in “Doctor Who” and “Sherlock.”

When the disciples begin to lose faith and talk of fleeing it is Mary Magdalene and Mother Mary herself that hold fast and shame them into keeping faith. “She stuck through it when all the guys faltered,” said Chung.

The show is an ambitious attempt to bring in not just the millions that flocked to the original “Bible” series but also those attracted to tense political thrillers.

“This is not Sunday school,” said Downey. “This is Sunday night drama.”

_____

Entertainment writer David Bauder contributed to this report from Malibu, California.

]]>http://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/nbcs-a-d-the-bible-continues-series-probes-post-crucifixion-political-drama/feed/0Pssst: It’s not Don Draper, but Matthew Weiner and his team who create those ‘Mad Men’ adshttp://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/pssst-its-not-don-draper-but-matthew-weiner-and-his-team-who-create-those-mad-men-ads/
http://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/pssst-its-not-don-draper-but-matthew-weiner-and-his-team-who-create-those-mad-men-ads/#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 10:26:41 -0700Frazier Moore, The Associated Press1571717Read the Rest of the Entry]]>NEW YORK, N.Y. – Matthew Weiner is no “mad man.” He’s never worked in advertising. But as the creator of “Mad Men,” AMC’s drama series about advertising in 1960s-era New York City, he’s cooked up more than a few advertisements.

Lucky Strike cigarettes, Kodak Carousel slide projectors, Burger Chef, London Fog raincoats: These vintage products are part of the culture of “Mad Men,” which let its audience experience them anew through the ads brainstormed by advertising whiz Don Draper and his colleagues — ads that in truth were conceived by Weiner with his fellow “Mad Men” writers as they fashioned each script.

“The advertising was always reverse-engineered to serve the theme of the story,” Weiner explained as “Mad Men” neared its final seven-episode run (Sunday at 10 p.m. EDT).

Just think of Season 5′s Jaguar account. It was landed only after the agency loaned sexy office manager Joan Harris to the lecherous Jaguar client for a night.

The accompanying tagline Weiner devised: “Jaguar. Finally something beautiful you can own,” which echoed the action: For a night, the client could imagine he owned Joan.

Even so, the two former real-life ad men in the “Mad Men” writers’ room shouted Weiner down.

“They said, ‘That’s a terrible ad!’ They said people who can buy a Jaguar can own LOTS of beautiful things: ‘So what’s the difference here?’”

The difference they came up with was to add this one word: truly.

“We made the ad ‘Finally something beautiful you can truly own.’ The idea was you can possess this in many ways beyond the literal purchase.” It served as a great way to frame the story’s subtext, never mind that it wasn’t necessarily a great ad.

“I’m not sure that, even with ‘truly’ in the tagline, it would have passed muster at a real agency,” Weiner conceded. “But fortunately, that doesn’t matter when you’re creating both the pitch AND the client’s response to it.”

Weiner remains proud of Draper’s footprints-in-the-sand pitch for the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Season 6, even though “Hawaii: The jumping off point” may have been a bit too avant garde for 1968. Note: The Hawaiian hotel itself wasn’t pictured in the ad, nor was the traveller — just his clothes strewn on a beach with footprints leading to the water’s edge.

“He got off the plane, took a deep breath, shed his skin and jumped off,” Draper explained in his pitch, then asked rhetorically, “What happened to him?”

“I think, and I think people might think, that he died,” said the client unhappily.

Suicide-by-drowning wasn’t what Draper was selling, but his belly flop of an ad fit snugly into that episode, which focused on issues of mortality.

Weiner said that, in capturing the agency’s sometimes contentious creative process, the writers’ room at “Mad Men” sometimes took on the same atmosphere.

“The biggest argument we had about advertising, ever, was in Season 2,” he said. “It was whether to dump Mohawk Airlines, so the agency would have a shot at American Airlines.

“I was like, ‘That is so immoral! Don wouldn’t DO that!’”

And, indeed, Don protested in the finished scene, noting that, despite being smaller than American, Mohawk was “a good client who trusts us, who likes our work, who pays their bills on time. They don’t deserve to be thrown out the door for a wink from American.”

But back in the writers’ room, one of the show’s agency veterans had chortled at such naivete.

“He said to me, ‘Are you nuts?!’” recalled Weiner, “and made a gesture with his hands like unbalanced scales — one hand, $1 million; the other hand, $7 million.”

Weiner put that same sarcastic gesture in the episode, exhibited by account services head Duck Phillips, who then snorted, “Is there an issue?”

Don was overruled by this cynical logic. So was Weiner. But not before the “Mad Men” colleague threw up his hands and marveled, “This writers’ room is just like an agency!”

_____

EDITOR’S NOTE — Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore@ap.org and at http://www.twitter.com/tvfrazier . Past stories are available at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/frazier-moore

_____

Online:

www.amctv.com

]]>http://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/pssst-its-not-don-draper-but-matthew-weiner-and-his-team-who-create-those-mad-men-ads/feed/0John Furlong dropping lawsuit against Vancouver journalisthttp://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/john-furlong-dropping-lawsuit-against-vancouver-journalist/
http://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/john-furlong-dropping-lawsuit-against-vancouver-journalist/#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 10:09:13 -0700Martin MacMahon1571689VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – In his first public comments since the final sex abuse case against him was dropped, John Furlong says he is ready to put an unimaginable nightmare behind him.

The man who headed the Vancouver organizing committee for the 2010 Olympics says he is dropping the lawsuit filed against Laura Robinson, the reporter whose article first brought the sex abuse claims to light.

Robinson’s lawsuit against Furlong claiming he defamed her in a news conference following the article remains active.

Furlong says he will now try to rebuild his business career and get on with his life.

Provincial Health Officer Dr. Perry Kendall says health care workers and visitors to health-care facilities are no longer required to wear a mask if they are not vaccinated against the flu.

This was the second full year the protection policy was in effect. Its aim was to prevent the spread of the flu in health care facilities and residential care homes.

It came into effect at the beginning of December.

The province says 80 per cent of health-care workers in the province reported that they were vaccinated against the flu this season.

]]>http://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/health-ministry-to-lift-flu-protection-policy/feed/0Thieves make off with giant metal rooster; owners hope ‘Rocket’ doesn’t end up in scrap heaphttp://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/thieves-make-off-with-giant-metal-rooster-owners-hope-rocket-doesnt-end-up-in-scrap-heap/
http://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/thieves-make-off-with-giant-metal-rooster-owners-hope-rocket-doesnt-end-up-in-scrap-heap/#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 10:02:13 -0700The Associated Press1571661Read the Rest of the Entry]]>ATHENS, Ga. – Police are searching for whoever made off with Rocket the Rusty Rooster, a 10-foot-tall, 300-pound metal sculpture stolen from its perch outside an Athens business.

Harris said the rooster attracted attention to the store, which opened in November.

Athens-Clarke County police say the estimated value of the Bunyanesque artwork is $3,000, meaning that whoever stole it could face a felony.

Harris tells The Athens Banner-Herald that the rooster’s installation two weeks ago involved anchoring the big bird in the ground with rebar stakes. She said her husband thinks some type of tool was used to cut Rusty away because part of one foot was left in the ground.

“ICM cost $182 million to date and has not fulfilled its key objectives of replacing numerous legacy systems and improving appropriate information sharing,” says Carol Bellringer. “This undercuts the original vision for a single integrated system across the social services sector.”

She has offered eight recommendations.

The ICM oversees more than 200,000 clients in social programs like child welfare, child care, and income assistance.

Bellringer found personal information was not always safeguarded, saying the system was not monitored for inappropriate activity and access to client information was not always on a “need-to-know” basis.

She adds client information was not always accurate and complete, noting there were some duplicate records.

]]>http://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/scathing-ag-report-of-bcs-integrated-case-management-system/feed/0Former Vancouver mayoral candidate trying to get Robertson out of office via courtshttp://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/former-vancouver-mayoral-candidate-trying-to-get-robertson-out-of-office-via-courts/
http://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/former-vancouver-mayoral-candidate-trying-to-get-robertson-out-of-office-via-courts/#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 09:50:57 -0700Martin MacMahon1571629VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A man who once ran and came third to Gregor Robertson in a Vancouver mayoral race is now trying to get him and a city councillor kicked out of office through the courts.

Vision Vancouver’s acceptance of over $100,000 from CUPE Local 1004 and related union bodies right after promising not to contract out city services puts Robertson and City Councillor Geoff Meggs in a conflict of interest, according to Randy Helton in a petition filed in BC Supreme Court set to be heard today.

“The elections are such an important part of our society,” says Helton. “They need to be held with the highest level of trust and integrity, and that’s what we’re going after here.

Helton is asking a judge to replace Robertson and Meggs with the next highest vote getters from the civic election.

“We’re testing new waters in BC, especially, regarding what our society expects in terms of donations in return for certain expectations if a politician is elected — it goes right to the core of our election system,” he says.

Helton launched the petition alongside four other people.

]]>http://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/former-vancouver-mayoral-candidate-trying-to-get-robertson-out-of-office-via-courts/feed/2Barbara Walters revisiting sensational crimes for ID network serieshttp://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/barbara-walters-revisiting-sensational-crimes-for-id-network-series/
http://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/barbara-walters-revisiting-sensational-crimes-for-id-network-series/#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 09:48:35 -0700The Associated Press1571643Read the Rest of the Entry]]>NEW YORK, N.Y. – Barbara Walters resisted using the word “retirement” when she left “The View” and here’s one reason why: She has a new series set to begin this October on the Investigation Discovery network.

The fast-growing ID network said Tuesday that Walters will present “American Scandal,” a series that looks back on well-known crimes where she worked on the stories initially. In the new series, she’ll revisit cases involving Jean Harris, the former girls’ school headmistress convicted of the murder of her lover, and Mary Kay Letourneau (leh-TUR’-noh), a suburban Seattle teacher convicted of raping a 12-year-old student.

Walters has committed to making six episodes of “American Scandal.”

She joins a list of broadcast news veterans like Paula Zahn, Tamron Hall, Chris Hansen and John Quinones who do work for ID.

]]>http://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/barbara-walters-revisiting-sensational-crimes-for-id-network-series/feed/0‘Mad Men’ returns for 7 final episodes as creator Matthew Weiner looks back on 7 seasonshttp://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/mad-men-returns-for-7-final-episodes-as-creator-matthew-weiner-looks-back-on-7-seasons/
http://www.news1130.com/2015/03/31/mad-men-returns-for-7-final-episodes-as-creator-matthew-weiner-looks-back-on-7-seasons/#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 09:26:45 -0700Frazier Moore, The Associated Press1571615Read the Rest of the Entry]]>NEW YORK, N.Y. – How time flies in this very mad world! It seems like only yesterday that the 1960s were dawning for Don Draper, his family and his comrades at the Sterling Cooper advertising agency. Now, as if in the blink of an eye, the ’60s are waning as “Mad Men” nears the end of its glorious run.

When the series begins its final stretch Sunday at 10 p.m. EDT on AMC, the passage of time will be palpable for all concerned — the series’ characters, its audience and, oh, by the way, “Mad Men” mastermind Matthew Weiner.

“I’m out of work,” cracks Weiner, who wrapped shooting last August, finished postproduction last October and, in December, vacated his office of seven years.

He is excited about what the last lap will bring, but, during this recent conversation, was customarily tight-lipped.

“We deal with the consequences of material success,” he says, only hinting at what lies ahead for the agency’s newly well-to-do partners. “The incredible windfall they got at the end of last season wasn’t just a plot device. It is propelling them into these last seven episodes: Once all your material needs are met, what else is on your mind?”

In an interview a few weeks before “Mad Men” premiered in July 2007, Weiner explained why he had placed his ambitious new drama in the 1960s.

“By talking about that era,” he said, “I can talk about everything right now that I care about.” Things like civil rights. Sex. Gender roles. The nature of adulthood.

And that he has done, season after season, with a drama of modern society as viewed through the prism of modernity as it was a half-century ago.

Weiner centred the action on Draper, whose gift for image-making, seduction and strategic chicanery was perfectly suited to the advertising game. Meanwhile, Draper, like the ’60s, was sufficiently removed, but not too far removed, from the present day to lend it fresh perspective — what Weiner calls “the quotidian reality of everyday behaviour and desire and aspiration and frustration” — with startling currency, not to mention retro chic.

Even so, Weiner’s choice of time frame was remarkable, since he, now 49, fell short of membership among the usual custodians of ’60s lore: baby boomers. And his chosen hero, Draper, born in the 1920s, was significantly older than the boomer crowd.

“The story has been told mostly through the baby boomers,” Weiner says. “They got their hands on the wheel and they’ve been taking us on a tour of the quote-unquote ‘Turbulent Sixties’ ever since. But that way, we see it through the eyes of a child. I wanted to focus on what an adult was during that period.”

When “Mad Men” began, Draper was already in his mid-30s, and increasingly he has viewed that decade through wary eyes.

“Matt used a lot of incredibly resonant 1960s touchstones,” says Jon Hamm, who under his guidance brought Draper to life. “But it’s in a very wise way, because he’s never leaned on them. It’s never been a travelogue through the ’60s or a history lesson. It’s just been about these people who came out of Matt’s mind and have been working through their lives in this tumultuous, tricky time. We navigated those incredibly choppy waters with his characters,” who have also included those portrayed by co-stars Elisabeth Moss, John Slattery, Vincent Kartheiser, Christina Hendricks, Rich Sommer, Aaron Staton and Robert Morse.

“Mad Men” tapped into the ’60s ethos with painstaking authenticity. But that wasn’t all. From the vantage point of 50 years’ distance, Weiner also drew on his unfolding life — even his experience of doing the show.

When Don, in the second season, says, “I keep going to a lot of places and ending up somewhere I’ve already been,” it’s not just an expression of his existential angst. It’s also Weiner’s lament as a writer feeling pressure not to repeat himself in each subsequent script.

Negotiations that pitted Weiner against AMC and the series’ studio figured into “Mad Men” — particularly the bitter clash that dragged on for months before a new contract was signed in March 2011, a squabble that delayed the show’s return for its fifth season.

“There’s a lot of negotiating that season,” notes Weiner, including failed negotiations that spurred Draper’s fed-up protegee, Peggy Olson (Moss), to leap to a rival agency. “That was on my mind.”

The autobiographical, historical and imagined commingle in a series that has always been fiercely formula-averse. The tale unwinds at times with crystalline specificity, at times like a half-remembered dream. Things that go unsaid become as forceful as the show’s most penetrating dialogue. Episodes are densely packed and yet, somehow, meditative. Sometimes hard-edged, sometimes mystical.

“In a weird way,” says Weiner, “what happens is not as important as how it happens.”

No wonder viewers plunder “Mad Men” for any buried clues. Item: In the final moments of last year’s finale, set in July 1969, agency founder Bert Cooper (Morse) appears a few hours after his death in a vision to Draper, breezily performing a song-and-dance number that had viewers stewing over its meaning.

“The show is famous for being byzantine,” Weiner acknowledges. “But I can’t believe that someone singing ‘The Best Things in Life Are Free’ was up for conversation. That was EXACTLY what I was trying to say!”

It was a sweet, poignant scene, all right, and it perfectly set up these final seven episodes with the most heretical message possible by a series whose characters proclaim: The best things in life are the products we sell.

“Oh, my God! I didn’t even THINK about that,” says Weiner, laughing as his timeless drama nears the end. “Lucky for me I’m not in advertising!”

_____

EDITOR’S NOTE — Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore@ap.org and at http://www.twitter.com/tvfrazier. Past stories are available at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/frazier-moore